Twisted Sisters

by Jen Lancaster

  Sister Act

  “Yucky! It’s touching my sweet potatoes!” One of Mary Mac’s twins—no idea which—is in the throes of a fit, having been served a tiny portion of the beautiful salad I made especially for this meal. From the way she’s carrying on, you’d imagine I was trying to poison her, and not just add a little non-factory-farmed, chicken-finger-based protein to her diet. To punctuate her point, she adds, “I hate this!”

  I try to reason with Kiley Irelyn, but my patience is already shot due to having been stuck downstairs at the children’s table a-freaking-gain. Yes, this is the year I was to finally make the leap upstairs to the grown-ups’ table, lest Aunt Sophia’s death—and the loss of Jell-O molds—be in vain.

  But no.

  Instead, my great-aunt Helen and Charlie, her new octogenarian suitor, are taking the spots earmarked for Kassel and me. Aunt Helen thought it would be a big kick to surprise us on their way down from Milwaukee to Florida for the winter, because who cares about RSVPs? Yes! Let’s just throw the seating arrangement out the window! Reagan won’t mind being downgraded to the basement! Proper holiday protocol be damned!

  And while we’re at it, let’s park the massive RV we’re driving on the street in front of the Bishops’ house where it can take up three spaces, causing everyone else to have to hike two blocks carrying the only platters of healthy food anyone will see in this damn place all year!

  I paste a facsimile of a smile on my face. “Just try one bite,” I suggest. “After all, there are starving children all over the world who’d kill for the opportunity to eat something like this.”

  Even though I warned Kassel about the potential for this being a dysfunctional family meal, my hope is to keep a lid on as much abhorrent behavior as possible. Or to at least compensate for earlier when Charlie mentioned how comfortable and freeing it is to pilot his RV sans pants. (Although I imagine it is more comfortable, what with his current waistband hitting him right below the armpit.)

  “No.” Kiley Irelyn clamps her lips together. She and her sister could not be more identical today in their matching velvet dresses with smocked tops and lace collars. They’re even sporting corresponding hair bands in their shoulder-length, burnt orange curls. Why would anyone do that? What’s the point of putting the girls in the exact same thing and styling them in a way that doesn’t suggest two individuals, so much as one and a spare?

  And yet when I offer Mary Mac this suggestion—coming from a place of love and concern, mind you—she replies that until I successfully raise a dog/cat/goldfish, I’m to keep my parenting suggestions to myself.

  Perhaps the child will respond to reason. I say, “How can you be sure you don’t like what I’ve made if you won’t even taste it?”

  “Because it looks like barf,” she replies, all matter-of-fact.

  Across the table, Geri covers her mouth with a napkin to hide her laughter. I point at her. “Not helpful!”

  As I’m not about to be bested by a five-year-old (nine-year-old? who can tell?), I say, “I suspect you believe you hate this salad because you don’t recognize some of the ingredients in it. Allow me to elaborate. The round parts are quinoa, and quinoa is a superfood—it’s full of protein and magnesium and lysine!”

  She shoves her plate away. “Ewww! You want me to eat Visine?”

  I’m trying to not raise my voice, but how is she not responding to reason? “No, not eyedrops. Lysine is an amino acid,” I explain.

  “Kids love amino acids,” Kassel quips. “Every time I see Walt, he’s all, ‘Dad, Dad, can we go out for amino acids?’” Geri begins to laugh in earnest until she spots me shooting daggers at her.

  “Quinoa is kind of like rice, sweetie. You love the fried rice from Hunan Garden,” Geri offers. I’m not buying this sudden look-how-amazing-I-am-with-children act. She knows Kassel has a kid and she’s trying to make me seem like an asshole.

  Kiley Irelyn softens because she’s only six (eight?) and doesn’t realize she’s being played. “Oh, okay. But what’s the other junk mixed in?”

  I have to force myself from sighing in resignation. I’d hardly classify what’s on her dish as junk. In fact, it’s the opposite of junk. While perusing CookingLight.com, I ran across this salad recipe and thought it would provide the perfect contrast to all things covered in marshmallows and drowned in butter on this day. The organic beets give the dish an earthy crunch and the kumquats offer the sweet tanginess of a bottled dressing, only without all the MSG, sulfur dioxide, and sodium benzoate, which I’ve read can lead to hyperactivity disorder in children. (Trust me, these kids are already hyper enough.)

  “You like oranges, right?” Geri asks. “Remember that time we ate all those clementines while watching Finding Nemo?”

  Kiley Irelyn nods and snuggles closer to her aunt.

  Show-off.

  Geri tells her, “Well, there are two kinds of oranges in here. Kumquats are like little-bitty oranges, only you can eat the skin, too. Isn’t that crazy? Look at me, I’m going to put the whoooole thing in my mouth! The mama orange cries, Please don’t eat my baby! but I will anyway!” She takes a bite and makes exaggerated chewing noises before opening her mouth for a split second to show Kiley Irelyn her tongue coated in orange paste.

  Charming.

  Yet for some reason Kiley Irelyn responds to Geri’s antics and she starts to titter.

  I guarantee Geri’s only being helpful to impress Kassel. Her eyes practically popped out of her head when she saw him come in with me. I explained that we were work colleagues, and when she asked if it was something more, I responded ambiguously.

  My relationships? Are none of her business.

  Also, I can handle this kid on my own.

  I explain, “The other kind of orange is Italian. See the crimson flesh? It’s called a blood orange. And who doesn’t love the blood orange? They’re sweeter than your average citrus fruit and their juice—”

  “Ma, Auntie Reagan’s trying to make me eat blood!”

  I predicted today would go sideways. Damn kids always ruining my credibility. So, in my most calming, professional voice, I say, “Kiley Irelyn, it is never appropriate to yell at the dinner table.”

  “I’m not Kylie!” She runs up the stairs to the table where I should be right now.

  Geri shrugs. “Sorry, Gip, I tried.”

  “Gip?” Kassel looks up from his mountain of mashed potatoes. “Why are you calling her Gip?”

  “Like the Gipper? As in ‘win one for the,’” Geri replies, batting her eyes.

  Okay, please stop flirting with him right now. You’re just embarrassing yourself. Side-by-side comparison between us? There is no comparison. Perhaps Geri’s shaken off a pound or two of extra tonnage recently, but she’ll never have my lean muscle mass or Black Irish coloring. And so what if she’s straightened her wild curls today? The second she encounters humidity, boom! The full Bozo.

  Also?

  Freckles?

  No.

  Geri explains, “Reagan’s namesake is President Ronald, so I’ve been calling her that ever since I saw the movie.”

  Intrigued, Kassel leans forward in his seat. “You a fan of Knute Rockne?”

  Geri reaches into her shirt and brandishes the gold cross she’s worn ever since her first communion. “Um, hello? Catholic upbringing? Eff, yeah!”

  I’m sorry, but what the eff is it with the eff business? Geri drops f-bombs like hippies drop acid and rappers drop microphones. Why is she being such an effing phony right now? “Knute Rockne’s only the best football film ever made until—”

  Kassel and Geri shout at the same time, “Rudy!”

  Kassel lowers his voice and says, “‘My son’s going to Notre Dame!’”

  To which Geri replies, “‘You’re a Ruettiger. There’s nothing in the world wrong with being a Ruettiger!’”


  “‘You ain’t here to be no nanny in no kindergarten!’”

  “Onward to vic-to-ry!” Geri sings.

  They both grin like lunatics and then clink wineglasses across the table. “To the fighting Irish!” Kassel cries.

  What’s happening here?

  Do . . . do I see a spark between them? Because, no. Whatever this is needs to cease and desist immediately. She’s always been like that with every boyfriend I brought home. Or I guess just Sebastian and Boyd, as I never really brought anyone else here. And why would I, seeing how whatever man walks in the door will get the full-court press from Geri?

  Although Kassel’s far from being my boyfriend, Geri isn’t privy to our status. For all she knows, I could have shagged him rotten prior to his arrival.

  Perhaps I haven’t officially staked my claim, but she should respect the notion that since I brought him, he’s off-limits.

  My God, it’s like the Cabbage Patch doll all over again.

  When Mary Mac was packing to leave for college, she began to divest herself of all the childhood crap she didn’t want anymore. She had this Cabbage Patch doll named Lillian Lizabeth in mint condition because apparently she wasn’t ever that into babies.

  (The irony! It burns, it burns!)

  I’d coveted Lillian Lizabeth for years, largely because Mary Mac never let me touch her. I always thought she was destined to be mine, as she had my light skin and blue eyes, complete with fat, dark braids.

  While Geri was more into stuffed animals, I was a true doll aficionado. Such was my devotion to my doll collection, I hand washed their garments weekly and I kept each member of my dolly family neatly packed away in an old trunk for safekeeping. For fairness’s sake, I’d play with each of them an equal amount of time.

  I’d created entire journals with their elaborate backstories, too. For example, the blond boy doll with the bowl cut and sailor suit was Hans Maarten van der Maarten and he enjoyed picking tulips when he wasn’t busy helping out in his family’s wooden shoe factory. He lived right by a dike and he was always sure to plug any developing cracks with wads of chewing gum. He owned a dog named Otto, who was always chasing geese.

  Even though Lilly-Lizzie (that’s what her close friends called her) wasn’t yet mine, that didn’t stop me from creating her biography. I believed her to be noble and true, with a scholarly bent. And even though she’d been kidnapped by gypsies as a baby, there was no mistaking her royal bearing. She knew that someday her proper family would find her again, as blood always called to blood. Lady Lilly-Lizzie would indeed ride again.

  Anyway, Ma asked if either one of us wanted Mary Mac’s doll, which, sweet Jesus, dreams really do come true! As I was standing there trying to decide exactly which doll would be taken out of rotation in order to best accommodate Lilly-Lizzie, and whether or not we should consult an attorney regarding legally transferring the Cabbage Patch adoption paperwork, Geri grabbed her and ran off. I was stunned, yet Ma’s response was about how he who hesitates is lost.

  What was so infuriating is there was no way I wasn’t destined to own that doll, and everyone was aware of that fact. But because of my methodical approach, Geri was able to weasel her way in and run off with my great prize.

  Then, within a day, she’d promptly hacked off Lilly-Lizzie’s glorious braids, covered her face in Sharpie-based freckles, and then left her floating facedown in the pool like the saddest little corpse in the universe for the rest of the summer.

  To this day what makes me mad is she didn’t even want the damn doll.

  She just wanted me to not have it.

  Before I can position myself between Kassel and Geri, Mary Mac comes barreling down the stairs like an angry mama bear.

  “Why do you insist on tormenting my kids?” Mary Mac demands. Bits of spittle fly from the corners of her mouth.

  “Because they’re acting like children,” I reply, blotting my cheek with a napkin. I mean, isn’t it obvious?

  “They are children. And why can’t you just call them by their proper names?” She’s standing there vibrating with fury in her awful way-too-soon-for-Christmas holiday sweater, bedecked with bells and three-dimensional felt antlers extending from the top of the embossed reindeer’s head.

  It’s so unfair to be put on the spot like this. “You should have them wear name tags, as no one could possibly remember which is which and how old each one is.” When they were all gathered around this table briefly before going upstairs to play Wii bowling, I’d point at whomever I wanted to ask a question. How was this problematic? I asked the one in glasses about school because I assumed she’s smart and the zitty one if he had a girlfriend. (Negative.) (And no surprise there.)

  Mary Mac hisses, “Geri doesn’t have any trouble, do you, Geri? Tell Reagan about your nieces and nephews.”

  Geri puts on this big act, looking at me, then Mary Mac, like she’s all sheepish and truly can’t decide whom to support. She hesitates for a long time before replying, “Mickey Junior is turning eighteen right before Christmas, and he’s planning on joining his dad’s business when he graduates, provided he passes English. That’s touch and go for now. Beowulf’s a bitch. Sophia’s sixteen and has talked about being a nun, or at least she did until she fell in love with Niall from One Direction. He is the cutest member, though. Teagan’s thirteen and adores YA vampire books and she’s even better at Irish dance than Mary Mac was—she’s already earned a solo dress.”

  I try to ignore the rapt expression on Kassel’s face as Geri continues. “Brady’s just turned ten and plays drums. He’s not only best friends but also mortal enemies with Finley Patrick, who’s nine. Depends on the day of the week. Today they’re BFF. I chalk this up to their being Irish twins. Finley Patrick wants to be a garbage collector and he’s always bringing home junk he finds in the alley.”

  I try not to seem impressed, even though I’d be challenged to come up with half their names, let alone a single interest.

  “Kacey Irelyn and Kiley are both seven. Kiley has a tiny freckle under her right eye and Kacey Irelyn is just about the best swimmer I’ve ever seen for her age. Because she spends so much time in chlorine, her hair is shiner. Connor’s the baby, so of course I have a special bond with him. We babies stick together.”

  I’m literally choking back the bile as she continues, “He’s two and a half and is currently going through a stage where he truly believes he’s a turtle.”

  Oh. I guess that explains why he was crawling. I’d just assumed he was a gimp.

  Mary Mac flops into Kiley Irelyn’s abandoned seat. “Amazing what you can pick up when you’re invested in someone’s life other than your own.” She snorts. “Or the guy you’re stalking.”

  I can feel myself redden, partially from embarrassment, partially from rage.

  Naturally, Geri jumps in to offer her faux sympathy. “You can’t blame Gip for being busy. Look how much she’s accomplished! Compared to us, she’s a rock star. I mean, she has a PsyD. Heck, I went to beauty school.”

  I’m sorry, heck? Am I the only one who’s witnessing this?

  “You’re a hairdresser?” Kassel asks.

  “Only the best!” Geri fluffs her own ginger mane and giggles. “Or, at least I hope I’m pretty good. But I love doing hair so much—every day I fly out of bed, so excited to get to work. I adore my clients, and my salon rocks! Maybe I’ll never be rich, but you can’t put a price on having a vocation that makes you so happy.”

  Really? Is this why you’ve switched salons cough *fired* cough four times in the past five years?

  So. Full. Of. Shit.

  Mary Mac takes a bite of Kiley Irelyn’s turkey and chews angrily. She swallows and says, “Why’d you become a psychologist in the first place, Reagan? You don’t even like people, let alone want to help them. I bet you just wanted an opportunity to judge them on a
professional basis.”

  “Try to be a little more bitter, why don’t you?” I reply.

  Kassel’s head swivels back and forth like he’s watching a tennis match.

  “Mac, that’s not true,” Geri reasons. “Gip’s amazing at what she does. Remember the episode with the anorexic ballerina? How she connected with the girl? That was genuine. It’s almost like Gip knew what it was like to have an eating disorder.”

  “Of course she connected with the dancer,” Mary Mac scoffs. “She’s orthorexic herself.”

  “What’s orthorexic?” Kiley Irelyn asks from her corner of the table. I try to determine if she has a freckle or shinier hair, but I’ll be damned if I can discern between them. Different outfits! God! Is that so hard?

  Mary Mac replies, “Well, according to the segment I saw on 20/20, that means your auntie Reagan is so neurotic about the purity of her food that she ends up restricting her intake.”

  This is preposterous. I’m not even a little bit orthorexic. Orthorexia is an actual eating disorder, despite not yet being recognized by the DSM-IV. Besides, I watch fat and sugar because it’s common sense. I don’t restrict animal or dairy products—I eat plenty of dairy, as long as it’s certified organic, and preferably raw. And fish is absolutely an animal product. I’m simply cautious as to the process in which the fish are caught. Granted, I wouldn’t eat a McDonald’s Filet-O-Fish, but that’s not just because of how it’s farmed, but also because of the gloppy tartar sauce, the refined flour in the bun, the unnaturally orange cheese, and the deep-frying.

  “Oh, please,” I reply. “There’s something wrong with me because I hold myself to a higher standard when it comes to healthy eating? Damn me and my ethics! Forgive me for not climbing on the Chomp-tastic bandwagon.”

  “No,” Mary Mac argues, “there’s something wrong with you because you’re so insane about additives, preservatives, and genetic modification that you’re a massive pill in social situations. Which is ironic, given your stance on prescription meds. Look at your plate right now—there’s not a single item on it that you didn’t prepare and bring from home.”